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Stunning report: Gmail hits 1 billion active monthly users

The world's most popular e-mail service has just clocked 1 billion active monthly users, according to CEO Sundar Pichai.

2016 is looking like it could be Google’s biggest year yet. According to a report from Tech News Today, the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai revealed a stunning statistic on Alphabet Inc’s Q4 earnings call yesterday. The CEO announced that Gmail, Google’s popular email service, had reached the 1 billion MAU (monthly active users) benchmark.

It seems like it could be a mistake, but Google’s Gmail Twitter account confirmed the number in a tweet today, which read, “Thanks a billion for helping us make Gmail better and better!”

The landmark stat was revealed to investors and board members on an earnings call for Alphabet Inc, Google’s parent group. Just in the last year, Gmail has added more than 100 million users over the last year’s count. Company officials say that the massive uptick in monthly active users included a number of automated and artificial-intelligence-generated users, which accounted for about 10 percent of the total number.

Gmail has offered reliable, free e-mail service to Google users for a number of years, and the company is planning on continuing to improve the service. The Gmail team has leaked rumors about a new app, Inbox, which will sync a number of users’ favorite Gmail features to provide a better experience. The app’s anticipated “Bundles” option promises to make task management easier, and is expected to help people stay organized.

The 1 billion MAU mark is a huge milestone, but critics have spoken up about Google’s performance. The company crossed the 1 billion line much later than one of its major competitors, Facebook, who reached the milestone last year. While the two companies offer wildly different services, they both compete for people’s time spent using the Internet.

In other news, Google has surpassed competitor Apple as the world’s most valuable company. As Alphabet’s earnings continue to rise, the company could soon enter a league of its own.